Everyday Creative, Creative Every Day

Creative Every Day Theme for October: Earth

September 29th, 2010

At the end of each month I will announce the totally optional theme for the following month. Continuing with the elements theme, for the month of October, the theme will be the element of Earth. As always, this month's theme for the Creative Every Day Challenge is totally optional. Use it if it inspires you, continue being creative every day in your own way if it doesn't, or do something in between.

As the fall leaves begin to turn, this theme feels perfect. I'm thinking of this theme in terms of exploring the idea of earth in creative ways. You could play with natural items in your work, go exploring this beautiful Earth for your inspiration, or play with the colors of earth.

I'll be posting about the theme throughout the month on the blog to help keep you inspired. You can use the posts here for jumping off points or interpret the theme in your own creative way. If you need some suggestions, here are a few ideas to get you started. You could:

*Collect leaves and other natural items to make prints from.

*Walk your corner of the Earth and take photos of whatever catches your eye.

*Sit quietly on the ground and meditate.

*Mix dirt into your paint and play with texture!

*Make mud pies!

*Sculpt with clay.

*Find creative ways to take care of the Earth.

*Take your sketchbook outdoors.

How to use the CED themes:

If you're feeling creatively stuck or blocked at any point during the month, use the theme as a source of inspiration to get you moving. Feel free to focus on the theme in your creative activities for the entire month or as much as you'd like.

Using the theme is entirely optional for CED participants. Use it if it inspires you, ignore it if it doesn't. I'll be sharing posts throughout the month around the theme (among other things) to get you thinking about how to incorporate it into your life. I'd love to hear how you use the theme in your creative world.

And have fun with it!

If a healthy soil is full of death, it is also full of life: worms, fungi, microorganisms of all kinds ... Given only the health of the soil, nothing that dies is dead for very long. - Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, 1977

p.s. The art above is adapted from my Fall Birds piece, prints are available here.

We have been having a stretch of unseasonably hot weather here, even though it’s Fall. It is supposed to start cooling down today (whew!), so maybe that change will help me to get into this month’s theme.

Just as an aside, I am happy to announce that I am now a college graduate. I have a Bachelors in English with an emphasis in professional writing. Better late than never.

Lovely new theme, I finished my water theme dissolving my rocky soil with water only to discover we are moving to Earth. So I shall continue with the mud and muck I’ve started to play with knowing I’m spot on with the theme for October.

I love this topic!! I think we all need to love out Mother Earth more—or we will not survive…there will be no economy on a dead planet…art about our Earth is one way to change attitudes…we just cannot afford to continue to pollute and use up our Earth…